A sage in training
by Tale master redux
Summary: "What are you?" the girl asked her red eyes glowing under the moonlight. "Me, I'm just a sage in training travelling the world ."the boy replied his torn cloak fluttering with the wind. this my friend is story of a sage and his companions.
1. Chapter 1

A Sage in training

Disclaimer: All publicly known characters belong to their respective creators and companies. I own nothing except for a few OCs that may or many not appear in this story.

Chapter 1

10 year old Issei Hyoudou was alone in the park. Why was he alone? It was because just a week before his best friend and neighbor Iri move abroad leaving him behind, not that he blamed them. Nut it also left him with no friends as Iri was not only his best friend but also his only friend.

Sure there were other kids he used to play with but they were just that his playmates not friends.

So he was all alone in the park until he saw some kids gathering near an old man and seem to be having lots of fun with whatever he seem to be saying. He also wanted to hear what he was saying but could not get closer due to the large amount of kids nor listen properly due to the noise they were making.

So he just walked away found a bench to rest. He missed his friend but he was not sad about it, after all he promised that he would meet him again and that he would prove that he was the cooler one of the two.

The noise of the children died down and it seems that the old man was finally leaving.

Issei noted that the old man seem to be in a bit of hurry to leave, though he seems to have noticed him as he was coming towards him.

"Hello my boy." The old man greeted

"Why are you sitting here all alone?" he asked.

"Did you not here me preach about the wonder that the world offers?" he continued "Well as much as I would like to stay and preach to you of the wonders of the world, I'm in a bit of a hurry but to not feel left out I'll give you this book and let you discover true wonder yourself."

The book was a bit old Issei noted and was also a bit skeptical of taking it.

"Why?" Issei asked "why are you giving it to me?"

"Why indeed my boy." laughing a bit he said. "it's because I see that whatever that is in the book you will be able to not only see the beauty of it but also spread it like me. And don't worry I have many copies of the book you are holding so no loss for me."

Issei was grateful to the old man, though he did seem a bit untidy and a bit of a drunkard he was at least kind enough to not let him feel and also quite passionate about whatever he was preaching.

"Thank you, sir. I promise that whatever it is in the book I'll learn it and also spread it like you."

"Do that my boy and you will always find a fellow believer in me. Now off you go and off I go and don't forget 'All hail Oppai'."

"Bye, sir." Issei waved though he was a bit confused about the last bit.

Opening the book he read the title, it said 'Senjutsu: The path of the Sage'.

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A few blocks away

The old man after going away from the park checked his belongings and found that something was missing.

"_Ah I must have given that old book to the boy_" he mused "_though no loss as I said after I found that old book in that abandon temple so it must not be worth much, Though it saddens me that another one was lost before knowing the greatness of oppai .better leave before the police comes after me again like they did in the last town. But they would not stop me the world shall know the wonder that is oppai."_

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Later at the Hyoudou household

Issei was going through the book like he had promised the old man and he found out that it was quite boring and soon wanted to give up reading it. But he didn't as he had promised the old man who seem to be quite enthusiastic about it.

Issei though that the man must have been a sage, as he seem to fit the criteria for it. Old, poor looking and a bit of the wise type as he talked to him, so Issei concluded that the old man was definitely a sage not some poor drunkard beggar, after all what kind of beggar would have a book on 'Senjutsu'.

The old man said that he saw something in him that made him give him the book out of the many children in the park and said that he could learn what was in the book and become a sage, though he didn't say that directly he did imply it. Must be a sage thing.

Now Issei mused could he become a sage? The answer was not clear to him but having someone say that you have the potential to become something did give him some confidence. Even if it was from a stranger, a sage, a wise man from stories had told him that he could become one; it did fill him with a strange hope and determination to live up to that expectation.

And thus with a renewed energy Issei continued to read the book. Though there were many sentences and words he did not understand he continued to read the book and even went though it cover to cover.

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3 weeks later

Issei was a bookstore to buy a dictionary and some mangas. He found that they were a lot of things that he did not understand that were in the book and thought that a dictionary and reference book would help him. And the manga you ask? Hey he was a then year old book of course he would buy some mangas and comics. He can't just keep reading an old book over and over again no matter his promise, Cut him some slack already.

And on the topic of the book, he had the book memorized from cover to cover but that did not help him as he still fail to understand many things in the book, and not matter the amount of blind memorization would help him understand it, thus the need for reference books and dictionary.

He was browsing through the manga section since he had already selected the dictionary and a reference book and was now going through the manga section to buy some.

He skimmed through most of the mangas and took the most interesting ones when he came across one that mentioned chakra.

Now he knew that he had heard the word somewhere, when it occurred to him that he had read about it in the book.

He quickly bought the manga and the dictionary and headed home and started comparing it with the book. He found out that the chakra mentioned in the manga and the book were almost the same with some difference.

He busted out laughing at that. He had thought that he would have to buy many expensive books to even know what was being said in the book when he could have just have bought a few mangas to learn it. All his plans of extreme saving went down the drain.

Funny as it was that a manga would be a source of information, he did think that buying more reference books would be helpful. He was surprise at the incident but he should have known better after all.

'A sage finds knowledge where another would least expects it.'

It was a strange saying but one proven true in his situation. It also proved another tenant of sage training.

'One does not become a sage only due to knowledge itself, but also from the various experiences and lessons that the world teaches them no matter how absurd or strange they may be.'

Yes, it was strange, profound but strange. But if this is how one learns to become a sage then Issei though he would not mind becoming one.

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AN: This is a new story that i thought up as it was up in my head for sometime now and thought it would be interesting. this story, a 'what if' story, came to me when i though, what if Issei had training in senjutsu at a young age with the timeline been after Irina had left. and after a bit of thinking another thing popped up. What if the old man responsible for Issei's oppai obsession was the cause of his sage training an thus this story came into existence.

I will have to admit that i have no fixed plan for this story but it is a crossover and will be a crossover so be on the look out for it. though the elements of nasuverse will come in in the most unexpected manner or maybe not so unexpected but i'll try.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Training and discovery

It was five months ago when Issei started his training as a sage and discovered his unusual source of information and knowledge i.e. mangas. And in these five months many things had happened.

First of all he was able to buy all the available Naruto volumes with a bit of persuasion, saving and large amount of hard work. To buy them Issei had saved his allowances and worked around the neighborhood to gather enough money to finally buy them.

It was rewarding to him because not only did he get to enjoy a great action story but it also greatly helped his sage training. The manga not only gave him an insight in what a sage might have been but also show how Senjutsu could be used. Though he knew there was more to Senjutsu as the old book mentioned.

His favorite character in the series was Jiraiya the Toad Sage because not only was he a sage like Issei was training to be he was also very likable and made Issei wasn't to become like him, even if he would become a super pervert like him Issei did not mind that too much. He also thought of completing the Toad Sage's dream of a peaceful world no matter how impossible it was for him.

The series also taught Issei many things like the importance of friendship and teamwork, of never giving up no matter the odds and many other things that Issei kept it close to his heart. The lesson he learnt though the series were what the book had mention quite a lot in its pages and seeing an example of it did hammered those lessons home.

But it was not only moral lessons that the series taught him. It also taught him more about chakra and Senjutsu in detail. And through this he was able to further advance in his sage training.

The manga and the book may have differed on chakra and Senjutsu and their usage but it was similar enough to give him insight and understanding in many areas.

Though the five months were not just spent on gathering money and reading Naruto, Issei had also started doing various exercises towards a more healthy and fit body and had also started to study more and more. After all 'a sage grows not only in mind and spirit but also in body.' And with this tenant he had through himself in exercising and also his studies.

He also bough various mangas related to martial arts like History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi, Yu Yu Hakusho, Ranma 1/2 , Fist of the north star, etc and even fullmetal alchemist, though the last one was recommended by the store clerk.

Reading them he had grown to love martial arts and gave his best in trying to emulate them even a little bit as he knew that he was still in no condition to do the incredible feats shown in the manga, but maybe he could in the future.

He especially liked the mindset of the Anything Goes style and put it to use in his daily life by making every action a training session and with the tips shown in the old book itself he was able to moderate and at the same time increase the efficiency of his training.

He also liked how pressure point could do so many things like healing, paralyzing, making one laugh and many others over the top ridiculous things. The old book on Senjutsu also had three chapter dedicated to pressure points and its uses too. So Issei really wanted to learn about pressure points.

There were also many things he liked in the mangas but what he really wanted to learn and emulate was healing. He really wanted to know how to heal like it was shown in the mangas and even the old book said it was possible hell there were techniques in the book which could make him a healer far greater than Tsunade.

He wanted to learn healing because the mangas and the book had stated many times that it was easier to destroy than to heal and it was a sage's job to heal not destroy. This was further reinforced via the fullmetal alchemist manga as it showed him many things.

The manga had showed him how experiments could go wrong and the consequences of such things and how some people would use other to further their goal and some dark things the world had to offer. It also showed him some good things the world had to offer. Truly the fullmetal alchemist manga made him see the world a bit differently than before but the path of the sage also told him of such things. So It just fitted him all the more.

The five months had truly been special to him so far. The days passed and lessons learned had helped him view the world much more differently. Oh, it was not like he was enlightened or anything with the world much brighter, colorful or anything. It was just that the world remain the same just his view of it had changed a bit.

The things he had learn from the manga and the tenant of the sage he employed in his life and the training he had been doing made him see things which he had not seen before, even though they were always there, hear sounds he would have otherwise ignored and understand things which he would not have understood even after many years or maybe in this life.

The sound he heard, the things he saw and the understanding he gained all made the world seem more amazing than anything he had ever experienced. It was a subtle change but he could finally see and feel the result of his training.

He really did feel like it was worth becoming a sage, though he still had a long way to go.

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Issei was meditating in the forest. The place for his meditation was a small clearing surrounded by trees with a few boulders in between, other than a small wide space it had nothing to call it special. No hidden cave network, no great hollowed tree, just a small clearing surrounded by trees.

Here Issei was meditating like he always did after finishing his regular katas and workout routine, like he had been doing so for the past one and a half month since he had found and chosen this place as a training area.

It was quite strange though how he had found this place.

There was nothing elaborate or grand incident to finding it, no chases involve, no falling down getting hurt or anything. Hell he even did not have to find this place after combing the area or anything of that sort. He just headed toward the first small hill he saw and voila he found the place.

Actually he used the clearing as a basis, a starting point to search for a suitable place to train and found several place but not one neither caught his attention too much nor appeal to him. And with each search he just came back to the clearing had his lunch or whatever snacks he may have pack and either continue searching or go back home.

It was quite easy to keep up this routine as the clearing had easily accessible paths leading to some of the more dangerous areas of the hills and was also connected to multiple paths leading back to the city.

So he kept exploring using the clearing as his base and soon he just started to arrange the boulders and rocks to sit and clear some space for relaxation or practice, arrange some fallen logs, etc. all the while searching for the perfect training area.

When it happened Issei did not notice but each time he came to the clearing to start s new search he slowly but surely cut down his search time and stared spending more and more at the clearing.

Sometimes he would just sit down and read and write some new ideas that he could come up with and other times he would practice his katas and do some workouts. Soon he altogether gave up on his search for a training area, cause well he just found one even if it was not the most perfect or the most awesome training area in existence.

Coming back to the present Issei was meditating as his usual routine. He was trying to tap into his chakra by meditation like he had been doing for the past two weeks and today he felt he was going to find some success.

It came to him like a torrent of icy cold water. It was a completely alien feeling he felt when his chakra flow through him. It was cold and like an electric shock made Goosebumps and made his hair stand out. It was warm like he was wearing thick winter cloths during summer. It made him feel weak like it was something of a curse from the devil, yet he knew it made him strong like it was a blessing from god.

It was strange as he felt more emotions and sensation as his body adjusted to this new power. It was truly beyond his understanding or knowledge and of the minute experience he had as a sage.

He felt it withdrawing, slowly and almost sluggishly going back to where it came from. He let it retreat for now, as he gathered and composed himself and called upon it again.

It answered and came like water from an overflowing dam. Rushing and invigorating his body with a new found power.

He had found it, his chakra and his ki.

Now the real training begins.

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><p>AN:- This chapter really was not the best I had and would never be the best. Also due to lack of dialogues not much could be said about the character I'm trying to build in Issei. But in the future chapter it would be clear how Issei is both similar and different than his cannon counterpart. See ya later.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

It had been almost week since Issei had found his chakra and ki. Since then he had scoured the book and his mangas to make a list of all ki and chakra techniques, and boy was it long.

The list for ki techniques were long and was very varied for Issei to simply start trying to emulate and practice them and it was the same for chakra.

Though he did find some useful tips on how to increase one's ki and chakra using some training methods described in the book along with some additional methods from his mangas. He did want to just stick to increasing his chakra and ki reserves and if possible try to gain access to chi as well.

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Now what was the difference between ki and chi? Well Issei found that ki was pure physical energy which represented the life force of a person, while a chi was a natural energy that existed in nature as free flowing energy.

Chi while it was natural energy also known as natural ki was not pure physical energy like ki which represented life force. Chi also represented spiritual energy as well as other assortment of natural energies.

The book clearly stated that while chi and ki are most closely related they are vastly different due to their inherent nature and composition, since one was pure while the other was a combination of different energies. Comparing chi and ki were like comparing iron and steel, almost same appearances but different in properties and like steel chi tended to have different kinds and categories as well.

The book also emphasized on one fact about chi and ki it was that many people have different interpretation of ki and chi, some will have different meanings of ki and chi while some will just have the labels of ki and chi reversed for it.

The book in such situation advised to first feel the energy and then decide on its nature.

For chakra the book was clear that it was made of mental and physical energy not spiritual or magic with physical as the magical and spiritual energies were inherently different than mental energies.

The book stated that mental energies were mostly come in the form of psychic or esper powers also known as psi or psionics.

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Issei after researching all this soon began to follow through the ki and chakra building exercises as well as energy sensing for the beginning stages of Senjutsu training, and it was coming quite well too and was soon able to sense the life force of others but still was not able to distinguish them but it was just the second day of his sensory training so he was in no hurry.

Now most would that Issei must have been a prodigy to have made such advancements in such short month but he was not, though he was exceptional and very determined so he progressed quite faster than an average trainee.

The reason for his progress was that he had unrestricted access to all techniques and training methods for a sage in the art of Senjutsu and a treasure stove of knowledge that span more than a thousands of years of history that were tried, tested and refined to the point of maximum progress to get the best out of every second of training.

Now where was this treasure stove of thousand of years of knowledge? Why, it was it book of course.

It seems that the book while old and plain ordinary looking was enchanted in ways Issei could not even imagine. So when he accidentally channeled a bit of chakra new pages which weren't there before appeared and that too without increasing the book size or mass.

Issei who had previously memorized what was a 250 page book of information now had access to over more than 1000 pages worth of info on chakra alone.

He later tried channeling ki and the same happened with additional info and techniques on ki.

After skimming through and some pages he found that many of the techniques were exclusive to sages only as only they had the proper training to use them many dealing with nature and healing and crafting of various items.

He poured most of his time just going through all the techniques and info on chakra and ki and after a week he was able to memorized everything not understand or use them but he had memorized almost everything not all but close.

Now his brain should not have been able to processed everything there was but due to various memorization techniques both mundane, ki based and chakra based he was able to memorize and recall them perfectly, though it cause him to pass out for over two weeks and was a walking zombie for another week. If he had no had those memorization techniques he might have taken years to recover and even speak coherent words instead of mad ramblings.

He really was amazed at what he learned though, now that he slowly recalled them. There were quite a few, scratch that a whole lot of techniques that blew his mind, some literally would do exactly that.

The techniques range from healing, which he liked a whole lot, combat which went from ranged, silent, and frontal combat, which some were anti-world level techniques, to exploration, transportation, learning and teaching which Issei seemed to have unknowing mastered must have been how he leaned everything so quickly to just about everything even cleaning which had quite a lot of tips and example of application as well.

But what amazed and almost boggled Issei was that if a technique could be used and performed without ki or chakra it was written right next to it and Issei was shocked at learning how they could be done in almost all the methods listed some of the mundane techniques or their ki or chakra or even chi counterparts were easier to perform though some suffered from lack of power or were plain risky and dangerous.

Some were of style of fighting that made even the most skilled practitioner of martial arts that Issei knew look like novices, after all some techniques were able to cut diamond using paper or a stick. While some were just plain sounded and looked plain impossible till Issei tried some of the easier ones and they worked.

But what boggled Issei was that most of them followed science. Science!

Not the mundane science that he knew like laws gravity or something like that but laws with deals in time manipulation, faster than light travel, time dilation, hammerspace and sub-space and laws of multiple layers of reality, dimension, timeline and universe and their differences and so much more.

Issei was able to freeze water while keeping it on fire and made it float in the air and that was just a basic experiment that he came across. Who knew you could do that with milk paperclips and an old Beatle song.

What was more amazing was that they were all written by one person and one person only who went by the name Librarian.

Some of the other sages who had met him wrote that he was a fun eccentric guy always out seeking for knowledge and recording them and always trying to refine and find new ways of doing things, hell at one time when one magician name Salazar performed an orchestra of music using only magic and no musical instruments he did the same with a lot of glass bottles and drums and water and five rubber ball and a silver coin complete with a voice choir. How did he do this the answer vibrations and resonance and a whole lot of creativity.

But one day he disappeared and everything he did along with him. There were no giant cities of unbreakable glass, no grand monuments or libraries of knowledge and also nothing of the great feats he ever did was remembered or even believed to have existed except for some things and records which were immune to any inference of time. It was as if he was wiped out from time itself along with everything he did.

The sages at that time searched for him and investigated his disappearance and even searched for his friend the one call Doctor to get some answers about his disappearance but alas they found nothing, nothing at all except for the fact that the Daleks were involved who were they, they did not but every sage vowed to avenge him after all the felt much anger and hatred against the ones who could do such a cruel thing. And Issei also felt the same.

There were also records of countless prodigies who at the time wrote more that have of what was known about their respective line of works that were considered even miraculous even by today's standard both using ki and chakra and the mundane method.

There were also a lot of things Issei learned from the book and still could not understand a whole lot of them like knowing a proverb but not its meaning, and more and more were being revealed to him each and every time he read the book, and it was getting boring. BORING. BORING, BORING, BORING!

Yes, it was that much boring. Now don't blame Issei after all one can only read so much no matter how interesting it may be before becoming bored and not even exercising and training help stop the boredom.

Okay so he admit it, that it was fun to know how to created bombs from chicken eggs and water and also fun to break all HUMAN law of physics all the while playing with gravitons, but a child could only take so much of science when he was not that scientifically inclined towards it. nor did he want to keep reading about the totally awesome techniques that would take him quite a while to start training in.

So Issei took a trip to the store and bought a whole lot of anime DVDs and watch a marathon for four whole days then went on a long trip with his parents all over Japan and Europe for two months and came back right in time for school. All the while not touching the book nor any mangas or undergoing any training and spend some much needed time socializing with his parent and friends.

It was quite relaxing and Issei thought that he was now in somewhat a stable mindset of continuing his sage training.

He first wanted to complete training his sensory skills that were still a bit lacking as he still was not able to distinguish individual signatures but it was coming by as expected and he was finally able to access subspace for storage and travel, not to mention training, his favorite been the phantom subspace in which time flows 25 times faster but if one is skilled enough could control the speed of the flow and might even interact with the real world.

The last thing Issei started practicing was on a location spell that locates potential sages and teleports the user near them but that required using Senjutsu or a lot of ki and chakra which Issei was slowly going to have access to as his reserves of ki and chakra were slowly increasing to a level that was more than safe to use the spell and even if that was not the case he was able finally going to access Senjutsu chakra as he was almost finishing his sensory training and would be able to sense Senjutsu chakra.

School was finally starting and Issei was kind of looking forward to it along with his plans for finally using Senjutsu for the first time. But what Issei did not know was that he would face a test that many failed to pass, a test that even the greatest prodigy failed to conquer and that it would change him and his views forever.

For Issei did not know that he would face the hatred of that world and the phantoms of old if he did then maybe he would not have been so eager to share that knowledge with the ones who were going to become something more than his friends.

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><p>AN:- Now were are finally getting somewhere with this story and I'm sure there are a lot of question and a lot of explanations to be given not to mention a lot of things to be revealed but I'm thinking of revealing them in the course of the story so please be patient and do tell what you want to see most and what question you have.<p>

Till then See ya, Later.


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